“Drive-in restaurants” are characterized by a method of selling food in which customers are permitted to order, receive and pay for food without leaving their vehicles. In many cases, a drive-in restaurant will have a number of “stalls” in which customers park their vehicles. Drive-in stalls may include a menu and a method of placing an order to the inside of the restaurant using an intercom or similar device. Once the food is prepared, an employee, often referred to as a “carhop,” delivers the food to the customer at the stall. The carhop is often responsible for taking the customer's money, making change if necessary, and registering the money inside the restaurant.
In the past, drive-in restaurants were primarily cash-based operations and the success of drive-in restaurants was due largely to the convenience of allowing customers to complete the food-purchase transaction from their vehicles. As credit cards have become more popular, however, the convenience of completing the food-purchase transaction from the customer's vehicle has diminished.
Like dine-in restaurants, modern drive-in restaurants with credit-card capabilities include one or more credit-card processors housed inside the restaurant and customers using credit cards must therefore surrender their credit card to the carhop, wait for the carhop to process the credit card inside the restaurant and sign the credit card receipt upon approval of the credit card transaction. There is therefore a continued need to improve the efficiency and convenience of credit card transactions at drive-in restaurants.